PANAJI: Social activists and legal experts demanded that the state government take steps through a suitable legislation to ban the sale of Goan agricultural land to non-agriculturists and non-Goans.

Former law commission chairman Ramakant Khalap said that there are sufficient laws which can protect the sale of agricultural land to non-Goans but the Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) governments have been reluctant to enact the legislation.

"I have suggested that the government could go in for a certain amendment to bring a new legislation to protect land," Khalap said, adding that if the government still wants to get special status, it can pursue the cause with the Union government.

The entire problem of the Congress and BJP governments are that they are not looking at existing laws to protect land, he added.

Social activist Yatish Naik, in a letter to chief minister Manohar Parrikar, said that the "unique identity" of the state is under threat due to various factors and that the "demography of our state has been facing multiple challenges".

While pointing out at the Draft Bill (Land Protection) as suggested by the Goa law commission, Naik stated that while we debate and continue our struggle to seek special status in tune with the Constitution, certain measures within the jurisdictional and administrative domain of the state could certainly help in protecting the "unique Goan identity".